This November, Democracy Is on the Ballot

We all know people who are furious at Joe Biden because he has not reined in Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and because Biden has not stopped arms shipments to Israel, and because Biden has continued to insist on the “special” relationship between the US and Israel. People who are deeply angry about the continuing devastation of Gaza can and do make credible arguments to support their criticisms, including their indictment of Israel for war crimes. A good portion of those people, those voters, say that they cannot morally justify voting for Biden.

 

I can make many of the same arguments about how American policy toward Israel has failed to serve the national aspirations and humanitarian interests of the Palestinian people. I have felt exactly that way for at least the last four decades. And I can name all the presidents who have led the administrations that have done so much for Israel and so little for Palestine. Nixon. Carter. Reagan. George Bush. Clinton. George W. Bush. Obama. And now, Biden.

 

But I should add here that I never saw any previous president struggle with the moral implications of arming Israel. Biden does. Or at the very least, he struggles with the political consequences of his policies.

 

In an election year, which critical voting block does he satisfy? Center-right Jewish voters? Arab-Americans? Progressive youth? Biden’s apparent wish to satisfy everyone may damage his reelection campaign, but after four decades of presidents who never behaved as if they had any doubt about unequivocally supporting Israel, it comes as something of a relief to see Biden equivocate.

 

To be honest, I understand that the tiny bit of cheer I feel in response to Biden’s small displays of ambivalence won’t endear me to pro-Palestinian activists who decry Israel’s genocidal attack on Palestine and have arrived at the conclusion that Israel is an apartheid state, a colonial settler regime. But, I must cop to something here. I have been negotiating with my conscience for years, voting for Carter, for Clinton, for Obama, for Biden, not to mention Mondale, Dukakis, Gore and Kerry, and all the while millions of Palestinians have been shot, beaten, raped, dispossessed driven into exile, and robbed of their careers, professions and land.

 

In 1992, Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, emerged as the Democratic nominee for President. I had voted for Jerry Brown, I think, in the primary, but in the general election, I voted for Clinton. I did so aware that during the primary season, Clinton had briefly suspended his campaign so that he could performatively return to Arkansas to preside over the execution of Ricky Ray Rector, a man so intellectually compromised that he reportedly wanted to save the dessert from his last meal to eat after his execution was over. Clinton’s theatrical move was meant to send the message that, unlike other Democrats who were soft on crime, he would be tough.

 

I voted for Clinton despite knowing about how his had campaign exploited Rector’s execution and ignored the tragedy of Rector’s life. Once installed in the Oval Office, Bill (and Hilary) weaponized so-called “super predators” for political effect, and presided over the fastest growth of the federal prison population in history. The fact that I didn’t see that coming may not be further evidence of the erosion of my moral character, but it likely raises legitimate doubts about my political chops.

We all also know people who do not feel that the benefits of an economy that has strengthened substantially under Biden have reached them. People who have been hit hard by inflation. People who can't buy a home. People driving older, balkier vehicles who can't afford to buy a better one. People who can't find affordable daycare. Many of them don't see why who they vote for (or, even, if they vote, at all) would make any difference to the quality of their lives.

And there are still others who are being pushed out of their neighborhoods because of rising rents; people who can't afford the elements of a healthy diet because they live in food deserts; people who use up valuable family time and can't run necessary errands because they commute to work on congested roads, or because they don't have decent access to quality public transit; people for whom access to quality healthcare is a dream; people who don't have access to reproductive healthcare or to gender-affirming medical treatment. Some of them will vote for Biden, but many might not vote, at all.

We hear Democratic campaign officials tell us that the best response to Trump and MAGA, the best way to prevent a Trump victory, is to focus extensively on what Biden has accomplished. Okay, I hear that. His presidency has been marked by many positive achievements, including substantial investment in infrastructure expansion in all 50 states, more affordable (or free) access to high speed internet in rural communities, increased federal investments in green energy sources and next generation technologies, reduced healthcare and drug costs for seniors, expansion of benefits and services to veterans who have suffered from severe toxic exposures, expanded student debt relief for more than 40 million borrowers, increased tax collections from wealthy tax evaders, and more. Set your web browser to look for a list of what Biden has accomplished. It's quite long and, almost certainly, will benefit and has benefited working people and families more than any administration has since the New Deal.

But here's the rub, I don't think that all those messages affirming Biden's accomplishments are going to persuade substantial percentages of the people who fall into the groups specifically outlined in the first three paragraphs above. Too many of them are likely to feel that those messages are describing improvements in other people's lives, but not their own.

I think the only thing that's going to motivate past Biden voters or potential Biden voters who are right now angry or demoralized is to go down the list of groups of people whose lives will get worse, if Trump wins. Part of what I am arguing here is that the Trump who might win in November, and the people who will have played a pivotal role in electing him and will run the country after the election, are much worse than the goons and clowns who ran Trump's presidency from 2016-2020.

Trump himself has made clear that he will be coming after everybody whom he considers a political enemy. And that is a very long list.

 

You're angry about what's happening to Palestinians now? Under Trump, it will get much worse. After all, it was Trump who moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, breaking decades of explicit American policy that refused to make such a move; a move that sent a clear signal to Netanyahu and the Israel right: "We're okay with you doing things that previous presidents have always opposed."

 

Concluding that the worst is already happening to Palestinians, some folks might disagree with my assertion there is a meaningful difference between Biden and Trump; after all, if what is happening now is not genocide, all the momentum points to a genocidal conclusion. And, yes, the ongoing strangulation of the West Bank will continue, but any number of further escalations could result in complete ruin and death for Palestinians living there.

 

Under Trump, there will be no opening for a reversal of policy. And, into the bargain, during another Trump presidency, advocacy for BDS will almost certainly be criminalized, and pro-Palestinian activists might find themselves the target of federal prosecutions for a variety of felony charges, including conspiracy. At the very least, under Biden, activists are more likely to find effective political action.

Trump admires Hungarian strongman Viktor Orban, the guy who celebrates white heterosexuals and considers virtually every deviation from whiteness and heterosexuality to be a sin (and a crime). Just this past May, the American Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held a two-day conference in Budapest and invited Orban, who maintains dictatorial control in his own country, to be the keynote speaker.

 

Orban was explicit and effusive in his support for Trump, whom he describes as the politically persecuted victim of American liberals. And, shortly after the CPAC conference in Hungary, Orban and Vladimir Putin met in a highly publicized two-man summit of their own. Both leaders have arrested and tortured, perhaps assassinated, political opponents. They have jailed gay men and lesbians. Criminalizing homosexuality outright is not apparently on Trump’s agenda, but his base would enthusiastically support state bans on gay marriage and already approves of state efforts to ban gender-affirming medical care.

 

Who else will come under sustained attack from Trump, who has already talked about building large new prison camps? Who will be indefinitely detained there? The most vulnerable parts of the LGBTQ+ community? Undocumented immigrants? Doctors and nurses who provide reproductive healthcare or gender-affirming treatment?

 

Trump talks about mobilizing the national guard to attack “criminals” in big cities with a measurable probability that military units will arrive first in the big blue cities of the east and west coasts. Or would Trump’s posse show up first in Chicago, which is frequently the focus of his fiery attacks?

 

Defense attorneys who represent racial minorities and the poor should also assume that their clients will face increased jeopardy. If the Trumpian past is prologue, we can safely assume that new federal judges and prosecutors appointed by Trump will be equally casual about justice in the future. And don’t forget about local, MAGA-embracing judges and prosecutors who will be further emboldened by a Trump victory.

 

Dreamers will be primary targets of a restored Trump administration. Student loan forgiveness will be a vanishing possibility, but harsher collection activities are a certainty. Progressive activists will find themselves the targets of intensified local and federal police investigations not seen in this country since Cointelpro. The fossil fuel industry will be deregulated, and drilling and mining will escalate on public lands and in environmentally fragile geographies.

 

In an April 26^th, New York Times article, writer Charles Homans quotes from a Trump speech delivered at a CPAC conference in March of 2023. “'In 2016,' Trump said, 'I declared I am your voice. Today, I add: I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.'”

 

The only force that stands opposed to the devastation that a Trump administration will perpetrate on the country and on our democracy will be voters who prioritize democratic norms. If we fail at protecting our democracy, there may not be another chance to stop the accelerating erosion of democratic norms. No one can sit out this election and assume that they will get another chance in subsequent elections. This November, democracy is on the ballot.